1. Field of Invention
Embodiments of the present invention broadly relate to a system and method for storing and authorizing the use of stored information in an operating system. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention provide a system and method for enabling a system to authorize a use of a stored secret before exposing it to an application.
2. Description of the Background Art
It is an important security measurement to protect in an operating system for a computer the integrity of executable files, together with their custom attributes and data. Usually, custom attributes and data are stored in separate files. The integrities of both original executables and their attributes should be protected. Many executable files including their associated attributes are security sensitive; thus, maintaining, two or more files separately makes the original executable files and their attributes more vulnerable to security attacks. Furthermore, when two or more executable files are separately maintained, they may easily become asynchronous as a result of being separately maintained.
One type of standard file format for storing executable binaries is Executable and Linking Format (ELF) of the Linux Operating System. Information and data are organized in an ELF file as sections, which are indexed in a section table. Some custom attributes and data for executable binaries may be stored in ELF while additional attributes and data of other executable binaries may be stored in other executable binary files. In an ELF file, as with files of other operating systems, separately maintaining the original executables and their attributes in the ELF file in conjunction with other files makes the ELF file and all additional files more vulnerable to security attacks, as well as exposing all files including the ELF file to becoming asynchronous with respect to each other as a result of being separately maintained.